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Business

Musk’s all-nighters at Twitter raise concern for Tesla investors

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SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 15 (Reuters) – In 2018, Elon Musk was working through the night and sleeping at Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) factories in California and Nevada as the company struggled to ramp up production of the Model 3.

On Monday, Musk said he had worked through the night at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters and would keep “working & sleeping here” until the social media platform – which he recently acquired for $44 billion – was fixed.

A self-described “nanomanager,” Musk’s penchant for working long hours in moments of crisis has been a well-known part of his brand. But the billionaire’s deep dive into Twitter, after a protracted buyout that he tried to scrap, has some Tesla investors worried about his capacity to focus on his role as CEO of the world’s most valuable carmaker.

“Tesla investors are going to be frustrated,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures. “He’s probably going to spend more time on Twitter than any Tesla investor feels comfortable about.”

Musk, who is expected to testify in court on Wednesday about whether a $56 billion pay package at Tesla is justified, did not respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

He tweeted on Monday “I have Tesla covered too,” saying he planned to work at the electric vehicle maker for part of this week. Tesla has an office in Palo Alto, California, and a factory in Fremont, California.

Tesla’s shares have dropped by 50% since early April, when he disclosed he had taken a stake in Twitter. Sales of Musk’s own Tesla shares – totaling $20 billion since he disclosed his Twitter stake – have added to the pressure.

Tesla faces a growing list of challenges from demand concerns in China to a regulatory probe of the claims it makes about the abilities of its “Autopilot” driver assistance technology in the United States.

So far this month, Musk’s tweets about his efforts to reboot Twitter have accounted for more than two-thirds of his postings on the platform he acquired in October, according to a Reuters tally.

Tesla accounted for just 3% of his tweets from Nov. 1 to Nov. 15, down from an average of almost 16% over the previous eight months.

Reuters Graphics

Munster said he expects Twitter to consume Musk’s attention for the next six to 12 months, adding that Tesla was a more developed company than in earlier days and less immediately reliant on Musk.

In recent days, Musk has said his workload has increased significantly after his Twitter buy.

“I have too much work on my plate,” he said by video link to a business conference in Indonesia on Monday, saying he was working “from morning till night seven days a week.”

“Once Twitter is set on the right path, I think it is a much easier thing to manage than SpaceX or Tesla,” Musk said earlier this month at the Baron investment conference, referring to the aerospace company which he also runs.

Tesla investor Ross Gerber, a strong supporter of Musk, said on Tuesday that Tesla needed to find a deputy for its multitasking CEO. “I think he’s finally reached a point where he’s really challenging himself. I think they need to find the right person. And quite frankly, they just don’t have that person.”

‘MINIMAL TIME’

The Tesla board has expressed concerns about Musk’s commitment to SpaceX and several smaller companies. Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm said in a 2018 email that the “minimal time” Musk was spending at Tesla was “becoming more and more problematic,” according to court documents related to his pay trial. A Tesla shareholder says the board failed in approving a $56 billion pay package for him without demanding his full-time attention.

Another board member, Ira Ehrenpreis, noted at trial that Musk was paid for results, not time spent, a view echoed by Musk in a 2021 deposition. At Tesla’s annual meeting in August, Musk responded to a question about “key-man risk” by acknowledging his colleagues, saying “We do have a very talented team here. So I think Tesla would continue to do very well even if I was kidnapped by aliens or went back to my home planet maybe.”

Musk has proven his doubters wrong before and some early investors say they expect him to be up for the Twitter challenge. “When you get an entrepreneur that does all that he’s done, we should just be kissing his feet. The guy is awesome,” billionaire investor Tim Draper told Reuters.

But others have lost patience.

“Musk has managed to do what the bears have unsuccessfully tried for years – crush Tesla’s stock,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, a long-time Tesla bull, said in a note last week.

Ives called Twitter an “albatross,” a “distraction” and a “money pit” for Musk. “The Twitter circus show is slowly starting to impact the pristine EV brand of Tesla,” he said.

Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru
Additional reporting by Aditya Soni and Yurvaj Malik in Bengaluru
Editing by Kevin Krolicki, Ben Klayman, Peter Henderson and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Entertainment

Siebel Newsom, wife of California governor, accuses Harvey Weinstein of rape

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LOS ANGELES, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California’s governor, testified on Monday that former film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2005 when she was trying to build a career as a producer and actor.

On the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court, Siebel Newsom said she met Weinstein, now 70, at the Toronto Film Festival when she was 31 and had acted in some small film and TV roles.

Weeks later in California, Weinstein invited her to meet him at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills for what she thought was a business meeting, she testified. She was surprised to learn that she was supposed to meet Weinstein, then one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, in his hotel suite, she said.

When she arrived, Weinstein had no interest in discussing her projects, Siebel Newsom said. He went to the bathroom, called her over and began masturbating in front of her, she said, before touching her breasts and becoming “aggressive.”

“I was scared. This was not why I came here,” she said, often breaking into tears. “I just remembered physically trying to back away.”

Siebel Newsom said Weinstein got her onto a bed, though she cannot recall if he carried or dragged her there. He then raped her, she said.

“He was just so big and so determined,” she said. “This was hell.”

Weinstein, the man who became the face of #MeToo allegations five years ago, is serving a 23-year prison sentence for sex crimes in New York. He is now on trial in Los Angeles on 11 charges of rape and sexual assault and has pleaded not guilty.

Siebel Newsom, who was identified in court as Jane Doe #4, is one of four women whose allegations are the basis of the Los Angeles charges against Weinstein. Prosecutors had earlier said there were five accusers.

Siebel Newsom’s attorney confirmed in October that Siebel Newsom would testify in the case.

Defense attorneys have argued that all of Weinstein’s sexual encounters were consensual and that his accusers willingly took part in a “casting couch” culture to further their careers in Hollywood.

At the time of the meeting with Siebel Newsom, she had not met her future husband, current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and she said she did not tell him what happened until after allegations against Weinstein became public.

In cross-examination, Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman questioned Siebel Newsom about why her husband had accepted campaign donations from the producer. She said the governor returned the money after she told him about her encounter.

Weinstein, 70, was convicted of sexual misconduct in New York in February 2020. He was extradited from New York to a Los Angeles prison in July 2021.

In New York, Weinstein is appealing his conviction and 23-year prison sentence. He could face up to 140 years in prison if convicted on all of the charges in Los Angeles.

Reporting by Lisa Richwine. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Elon Musk says ‘I have too much work on my plate’

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NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he was working “at the absolute most amount…from morning til night, seven days a week” when asked about his recent acquisition of Twitter and his leadership of automaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).

“I have too much work on my plate that is for sure,” Musk said by videolink to a business conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.

Musk is chief executive of both companies and also runs rocket firm SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling firm the Boring Company. Wearing a batik shirt sent by the organizers, he appeared on screen lit by candles, explaining that he was speaking from a place that had just lost power.

Tesla investors worry that Musk, a self-confessed “nanomanager” who has been personally involved in working-level decisions from car styling to supply chain issues, is distracted at a critical time for the world’s largest electric vehicle maker.

Tesla’s shares have halved in value since early April, when he disclosed he had taken a stake in Twitter. His Tesla share sales, including another $4 billion last week to bring his Twitter-related sales to $20 billion, have added to the pressure.

When asked about the complexity of industrial supply chains “decoupling” from China and the risks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Musk returned to how busy he was.

Responding to an observation that many business leaders in Asia wanted to be the “Elon Musk of the East,” Musk said: “I’d be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly.”

Musk also said he wanted to see Twitter support more video and longer-form video so that content creators could make a living on the platform, but did not provide details. His remarks were streamed live on Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube.

Indonesia has been trying to secure a deal with Tesla on battery investment and potentially one for SpaceX to develop a rocket launch site.

Musk made no commitment to either of those but said Indonesia had a large role to play in the electric vehicle supply chain and that it would make sense “long term” for SpaceX to have multiple launch points around the globe.

It was not clear where Musk was during the Bali event. His personal jet has remained in Austin, Texas, Tesla’s headquarters since the weekend, according to @ElonJet, a Twitter account that tracks Musk’s Gulfstream G650.

“I’m just looking at this video and it’s so bizarre,” Musk said. “I’m sitting here in the dark surrounded by candles.”

Musk added he believed that the economy would make the transition to sustainable energy, adding it was “just a question of how long it takes.” He said space exploration should remain a priority “so we can understand the nature of the universe and our place in it.”

“Maybe we’ll find alien civilization or discover civilizations that existed millions of years ago, but we see the ruins of ancient civilizations. I think that would be incredibly interesting,” he said.

Reporting by Leika Kihara; Writing by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Edwina Gibbs

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Nearly half of Meta job cuts were in tech, reorg underway – execs say

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OAKLAND, Calif., Nov 11 (Reuters) – Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) told employees on Friday that it would stop developing smart displays and smartwatches and that nearly half of the 11,000 jobs it eliminated this week in an unprecedented cost-cutting move were technology roles.

Speaking during an employee townhall meeting heard by Reuters, Meta executives also said they were reorganizing parts of the company, combining a voice and video calling unit with other messaging teams and setting up a new division, Family Foundations, focused on tough engineering problems.

The executives said that the first mass layoff in the social media company’s 18-year history affected staffers at every level and on every team, including individuals with high performance ratings.

Overall, 54% of those laid off were in business positions and the rest were in technology roles, Meta human resources chief Lori Goler said. Meta’s recruiting team was cut nearly in half, she said.

The executives said further rounds of job cuts were not expected. But other expenses would have to be cut, they said, noting reviews underway about contractors, real estate, computing infrastructure and various products.

SMART DEVICES CUT

Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who runs the metaverse-oriented Reality Labs division, told staffers Meta would end its work on Portal smart display devices and on its smartwatches.

Meta had decided earlier this year to stop marketing Portal devices, known for their video calling capabilities, to consumers and focus instead on business sales, Bosworth said.

As the economy declined, executives decided more recently to make “bigger changes,” he said.

“It was just going to take so long, and take so much investment to get into the enterprise segment, it felt like the wrong way to invest your time and money,” said Bosworth.

Portal had not been a major revenue generator and drew privacy concerns from potential users. Meta had yet to unveil any smartwatches.

Bosworth said the smartwatch unit would focus instead on augmented reality glasses. More than half of the total investment in Reality Labs was going to augmented reality, he added.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg on Friday reiterated his apology from Wednesday about having to cut 13% of the workforce, telling employees he had failed to forecast Meta’s first dropoff in revenue.

Meta aggressively hired during the pandemic amid a surge in social media usage by stuck-at-home consumers. But business suffered this year as advertisers and consumers pulled the plug on spending in the face of soaring costs and rapidly rising interest rates.

The company also faced increased competition from TikTok and lost access to valuable user data that powered its ad targeting systems after Apple made privacy-oriented changes to its operating system.

“Revenue trends are just a lot lower than what I predicted. Again, I got this wrong. It was a big mistake in planning for the company. I take responsibility for it,” Zuckerberg said.

Going forward, he added, he was not planning to “massively” grow headcount of the Reality Labs unit.

Meta shares closed up 1% at $113.02.

Reporting by Paresh Dave in Oakland, California, Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California, Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora Ellis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Paresh Dave

Thomson Reuters

San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.

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Business

Musk warns of Twitter bankruptcy as more senior executives quit

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Nov 10 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc’s new owner Elon Musk on Thursday raised the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt, capping a chaotic day that included a warning from a U.S. privacy regulator and the exit of the company’s trust and safety leader.

The billionaire on his first mass call with employees said that he could not rule out bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported, two weeks after buying it for $44 billion – a deal that credit experts say has left Twitter’s finances in a precarious position.

Earlier in the day, in his first company-wide email, Musk warned that Twitter would not be able to “survive the upcoming economic downturn” if it fails to boost subscription revenue to offset falling advertising income, three people who have seen the message told Reuters.

Yoel Roth, who has overseen Twitter’s response to combat hate speech, misinformation and spam on the service, resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

In his Twitter profile on Thursday, Roth described himself as “Former Head of Trust & Safety” at the company.

Roth did not respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg and tech site Platformer reported his exit first.

Earlier on Thursday, Twitter’s Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner tweeted that she had quit.

Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty also resigned, according to an internal message posted to Twitter’s Slack messaging system on Thursday by an attorney on its privacy team and seen by Reuters.

Robin Wheeler, the company’s top ad sales executive, told employees in a memo that she was staying at the company, a person who had seen the message said, diverging from earlier media reports that she too would be leaving.

“I’m still here,” Wheeler tweeted late on Thursday.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it was watching Twitter with “deep concern” after the three privacy and compliance officers quit. These resignations potentially put Twitter at risk of violating regulatory orders.

Musk attorney Alex Spiro told some employees in an email late on Thursday that Twitter would remain in compliance.

“We spoke to the FTC today about our continuing obligations and have a constructive ongoing dialogue,” Spiro wrote.

He stated that only Twitter, not individual employees, could be held liable against the orders.

“I understand that there have been employees at Twitter who do not even work on the FTC matter commenting that they could (go) to jail if we were not in compliance – that is simply not how this works,” he wrote.

Twitter app is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken, July 13, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo

In his first meeting with many employees at Twitter on Thursday afternoon, Musk warned that the company may lose billions of dollars next year, the Information reported.

Musk added in the email to workers that remote work would no longer be allowed and that they would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours per week.

Twitter, Musk and Spiro did not respond to requests for comment on a potential bankruptcy, the FTC warning, or the departures.

Musk ruthlessly moved to clean house after taking over on Oct. 27 and has said the company was losing more than $4 million a day, largely because advertisers started fleeing once he took over.

Twitter has $13 billion in debt after the deal and faces interest payments totaling close to $1.2 billion in the next 12 months. The payments exceed Twitter’s most recently disclosed cash flow, which amounted to $1.1 billion as of the end of June.

Musk has begun charging $8 a month for the Twitter Blue service that will include a blue check verification.

WARNING

“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs, told Reuters.

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them,” Farrar said.

In May, Twitter agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations by the FTC it misused private information, like phone numbers, to target advertising to users after telling them the information was collected only for security reasons.

Twitter’s privacy attorney on Thursday mentioned in the internal memo that Spiro had said that Musk was willing to take a “huge amount of risk” with the company. “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC,” the attorney quoted Spiro as saying.

Twitter’s buyout has sparked concerns that Musk, who has often waded into political debates, could face pressure from countries trying to control online speech.

It prompted U.S. President Joe Biden to say on Wednesday that Musk’s “cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at.”

ADVERTISERS NOT REASSURED

Musk told advertisers on Wednesday, speaking on Twitter’s Spaces feature, that he aimed to turn the platform into a force for truth and stop fake accounts.

His assurances may not be enough.

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG.N) said on Thursday it had pulled back its paid and owned content on Twitter “while we gain a better understanding on the direction of the platform under its new leadership.”

It joined other brands including General Motors (GM.N) that have paused advertising on Twitter since Musk took over, concerned that he will loosen content moderation rules.

Reporting by Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California and Paresh Dave in Oakland, California; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Diane Bartz in Washington, Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru and Fanny Potkin and Hyunjoo Jin; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Bill Berkrot, Deepa Babington and Sam Holmes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Paresh Dave

Thomson Reuters

San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.

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Business

Exclusive: Behind FTX’s fall, battling billionaires and a failed bid to save crypto

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Nov 10 (Reuters) – (This story contains language some readers may find offensive in paragraph 2)

On Tuesday morning, Sam Bankman-Fried, owner of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, caught his employees off-guard with a somber message.

“I’m sorry,” he told them. “I fucked up.”

The reason for the mea culpa: His announcement half an hour earlier that FTX’s arch-rival, Binance, planned to mount a shock takeover of its main trading platform to save it from a “liquidity crunch.” Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, whom the billionaire had accused of sabotage, would now be his White Knight.

The seeds of FTX’s downfall were sown months earlier, stemming from mistakes Bankman-Fried made after he stepped in to save other crypto firms as the crypto market collapsed amid rising interest rates, according to interviews with several people close to Bankman-Fried and communications from both companies that have not been previously reported.

Some of those deals involving Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research, led to a series of losses that eventually became his undoing, according to three people familiar with the company’s operations.

The interviews and messages also shine new light on the bitter rivalry between the two billionaires, who in recent months competed for market share and publicly accused each other of seeking to hurt the one another’s businesses. It culminated on Wednesday, with Binance pulling out of its deal and throwing FTX’s future into uncertainty.

Stuck without a buyer, Bankman-Fried was now searching for alternative backers, two people close to him said. After Binance pulled out, he told FTX staff in a message that Binance had not previously told them of any reservations about the deal and he was “exploring all options.”

Neither Binance nor FTX responded to requests for comment. Bankman-Fried told Reuters on Tuesday that “I’ll probably be too swamped” to do interviews. He didn’t respond to further messages.

Binance earlier said it decided to pull out of the deal as a result of its due diligence on FTX and news reports about U.S. investigations into the company.

Zhao’s unveiling of the planned takeover capped a stunning reversal for Bankman-Fried. The 30-year-old had set up Bahamas-based FTX in 2019 and led it to become one of the largest exchanges, accumulating a near $17 billion fortune.

News of the liquidity crunch at FTX – valued in January at $32 billion with investors including SoftBank and BlackRock – sent reverberations through the crypto world.

The price of major coins plummeted, with bitcoin slumping to its lowest in almost two years, heaping further pain on a sector whose value has fallen about two-thirds this year as central banks tightened credit.

By ditching the deal, Binance had also avoided the regulatory scrutiny that would likely have accompanied the takeover, which Zhao had flagged as a likelihood in a memo to employees that he posted on Twitter.

Financial regulators around the world have issued warnings about Binance for operating without a license or violating money laundering laws. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Binance for possible money laundering and criminal sanctions violations. Reuters reported last month that Binance had helped Iranian firms trade $8 billion since 2018 despite U.S. sanctions, part of a series of articles this year by the news agency on the exchange’s financial crime compliance.

RELATIONSHIP SOURS

Zhao and Bankman-Fried’s relationship began in 2019. Six months after FTX’s launch, Zhao bought 20% of the exchange for about $100 million, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said. At the time, Binance said the investment was “aimed to grow the crypto economy together.”

Within 18 months, however, their relationship had soured.

FTX had grown rapidly and Zhao now viewed it as a genuine competitor with global aspirations, former Binance employees said.

When FTX in May 2021 applied for a license in Gibraltar for a subsidiary, it had to submit information about its major shareholders, but Binance stonewalled FTX’s requests for help, according to messages and emails between the exchanges seen by Reuters.

Between May and July, FTX lawyers and advisors wrote to Binance at least 20 times for details on Zhao’s sources of wealth, banking relationships, and ownership of Binance, the messages show.

In June 2021, however, an FTX lawyer told Binance’s chief financial officer that Binance wasn’t “engaging with us properly” and they risked “severely disrupting an important project for us.” A Binance legal officer responded to FTX to say she was trying to get a response from Zhao’s personal assistant, but the requested information was “too general” and they may not provide everything.

By July of that year, Bankman-Fried had tired of waiting. He bought back Zhao’s stake in FTX for about $2 billion, the person with direct knowledge of the deal said. Two months later, with Binance no longer involved, Gibraltar’s regulator granted FTX a license.

That sum was paid to Binance, in part, in FTX’s own coin, FTT, Zhao said last Sunday – a holding he would later order Binance to sell, precipitating the crisis at FTX.

Reuters Graphics

“TRYING TO GO AFTER US”

This May and June, Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research, suffered a series of losses from deals, according to three people familiar with its operations. These included a $500-million loan agreement with failed crypto lender Voyager Digital, two of the people said. Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection the following month, with FTX’s U.S. arm paying $1.4 billion for its assets in a September auction. Reuters could not determine the full extent of losses Alameda suffered.

Seeking to prop up Alameda, which held almost $15 billion in assets, Bankman-Fried transferred at least $4 billion in FTX funds, secured by assets including FTT and shares in trading platform Robinhood Markets Inc, the people said. Alameda had disclosed a 7.6% share in Robinhood that May.

A portion of these FTX funds were customer deposits, two of the people said, though Reuters could not determine their value.

Bankman-Fried did not tell other FTX executives about the move to prop up Alameda, the people said, adding he was afraid that it could leak.

On Nov. 2, however, a report by news outlet CoinDesk detailed a leaked balance sheet that allegedly showed that much of Alameda’s $14.6 billion in assets were held in FTT. Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison tweeted that the balance sheet was merely for a “subset of our corporate entities,” with over $10 billion of assets not reflected. Ellison did not return requests for comment.

That failed to douse growing speculation over what Alameda’s financial health might mean for FTX.

Then Zhao said Binance would sell its entire share in the token, FTT, worth at least $580 million, “due to recent revelations that have come to light.” The token’s price collapsed 80% over the next two days and a torrent of outflows from the exchange gathered pace, blockchain data show.

WITHDRAWAL SURGE

In his message to staff this week, Bankman-Fried said the firm saw a “giant withdrawal surge” as users rushed to withdraw $6 billion in crypto tokens from FTX in just 72 hours. Daily withdrawals normally totaled tens of millions of dollars, Bankman-Fried told his employees.

After Zhao’s tweet that Binance would sell its FTT holding, Bankman-Fried projected confidence that FTX would weather its rival’s attacks. He told staff on Slack that withdrawals were “not shockingly, way up,” but they were able to process the requests.

“We’re chugging along,” he wrote. “Obviously, Binance is trying to go after us. So be it.”

But by Monday the situation became dire. Unable to quickly find a backer, or sell other illiquid assets short-notice, Bankman-Fried contacted Zhao, according to a person familiar with the call. Zhao later confirmed that Bankman-Fried had called him.

Bankman-Fried signed a non-binding letter of intent for Binance to buy FTX’s non-U.S. assets. This valued FTX at several billion dollars, two people familiar with the letter said – enough for the exchange to cover all withdrawal requests but a fraction of its January valuation.

Zhao announced the potential deal several hours later, with Bankman-Fried tweeting “a huge thank you to CZ.”

“Let’s live to fight another day,” Bankman-Fried told staff on Slack.

His employees were shocked. Even executives had been in the dark about the Alameda shortfall and takeover plan until Bankman-Fried informed them that morning, two people working with him said. Both people said they had been unaware that the withdrawal situation was so serious.

Then came Binance’s announcement on Wednesday scrapping the takeover. “The issues are beyond our control or ability to help,” Binance said. Zhao tweeted “Sad day. Tried,” with a crying emoji.

Reporting by Angus Berwick in New York and Tom Wilson in London; additional reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington and Elizabeth Howcroft in London; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Chris Sanders

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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US

Biden says Twitter spews lies across the world

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ROSEMONT, Illinois, Nov 4 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday that Elon Musk had purchased a social media platform in Twitter that spews lies across the world.

Twitter laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.

Biden said at a fundraiser: “And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends – that spews lies all across the world… There’s no editors anymore in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier that Biden had been clear about the need to reduce hate speech and misinformation.

“That belief extends to Twitter, it extends to Facebook and any other social media platforms where users can spread misinformation,” she said.

Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.” But major advertisers have expressed apprehension about his takeover for months.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Costas Pitas; Editing by William Mallard

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Twitter lays off staff as Musk blames activists for ‘massive’ ad revenue drop

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  • Musk looking to axe around half of Twitter’s workforce
  • Employees file class action against Twitter
  • Staff lose access to systems
  • Volkswagen pulls ads

Nov 4 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc started a major round of layoffs on Friday, alerting employees of their job status by email after barring the entrances to offices and cutting off workers’ access to internal systems overnight.

The move follows a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers pulled spending.

Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing Twitter’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation. The groups said on Friday they are escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” Twitter said in an email to staff on Thursday evening announcing the cuts that came on Friday, which was seen by Reuters.

The company was silent about the depth of the cuts, although internal plans reviewed by Reuters this week indicated Musk was looking to cut around 3,700 Twitter staff, or about half the workforce.

Staff who worked in engineering, communications, product, content curation and machine learning ethics were among those impacted by the layoffs, according to tweets from Twitter staff.

Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter’s acting head of human rights, tweeted on Friday that the entire human rights team at the company had been cut.

Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.” However, his reassurances have failed to calm major advertisers, which have expressed apprehension about his takeover for months.

Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) recommended its brands pause paid advertising on Twitter until further notice in the wake of Musk’s takeover, it said on Friday. Its comments echoed similar remarks from other companies, including General Motors Co (GM.N) and General Mills Inc (GIS.N).

Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, which is part of the civil rights coalition, said he knew of two more major advertisers that were preparing to announce that they would pause ads on the platform.

Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done “everything we could” to appease the groups. “Extremely messed up! They’re (civil right groups) trying to destroy free speech in America.”

Speaking at an investors conference in New York on Friday, Musk called the activist pressure “an attack on the First Amendment.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ACCESS TO SYSTEMS CUT

Dozens of staffers tweeted they lost access to work email and Slack channels before receiving an official notice, which they took as a sign they had been laid off.

[1/9] Owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc. Elon Musk arrives at the 29th Annual Baron Investment Conference in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

They tweeted blue hearts and salute emojis expressing support for one another, using the hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense version of a slogan employees had used for years to celebrate the company’s work culture.

Twitter’s curation team, which is responsible for “highlighting and contextualizing the best events and stories that unfold on Twitter,” had been axed, employees said on the platform. The company’s communications team in India has also been laid off, according to a Twitter executive in Asia.

A team that focused on research into how Twitter employed algorithms, an issue that was a priority for Musk, was also eliminated, according to a tweet from a former senior manager at Twitter.

Senior executives including Vice President of Engineering Arnaud Weber also said their goodbyes on Twitter on Friday: “Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I’m proud of what we accomplished,” he tweeted.

Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go. An employee with the handle “SillyRobin” who had indicated they were laid off, quote-tweeted Musk’s previous tweet saying Twitter Blue would include “paywall bypass” for certain publishers.

“Just to be clear, he fired the team working on this,” the employee said.

Twitter’s head of Safety & Integrity, Yoel Roth, appeared to have kept his job, as did Vice President of Product Keith Coleman, who launched a tool called Birdwatch for users to write notes on tweets they identify as misleading.

Last week, Musk endorsed Roth, citing his “high integrity” after Roth was called out over tweets critical of former U.S. President Donald Trump years earlier. Musk has also tweeted that he likes Birdwatch.

Roth and Coleman did not respond to requests for comment.

DOORS LOCKED

Twitter said in its email to staffers that offices would be temporarily closed and badge access suspended in order “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data.”

Offices in London and Dublin appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. At the London office, any evidence Twitter had once occupied the building was erased.

A receptionist at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters said a few people had trickled in and were working in the floors above despite the notice to stay away.

A class action was filed on Thursday against Twitter by its employees, who argued the company was conducting mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day advance notice, in violation of federal and California law.

The lawsuit also asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of the case.

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas, Katie Paul in Palo Alto, Calif., and Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.
Additional reporting by Fanny Potkin, Rusharti Mukherjee, Aditya Kalra, Martin Coulter, Hyunjoo Jin, Supantha Mukherjee and Arriana McLymore
Writing by Matt Scuffham
Editing by Kenneth Li, Jason Neely and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Paresh Dave

Thomson Reuters

San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.

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Business

Musk says Twitter will charge $8/month for blue check mark

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Nov 1 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc will charge $8 a month for its Blue service, which includes its sought-after “verified” badge, new boss Elon Musk said on Tuesday as he seeks to boost subscriptions and make the social media network less reliant on ads.

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” Musk said in a tweet, adding that the price will be adjusted by “country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”

A blue check mark next to a person’s user name on the social media platform means Twitter has confirmed that the account belongs to the person or company claiming it. Twitter is currently free for most users.

Billionaire Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last week.

Since the takeover, he has moved quickly to put his stamp on the company, firing its previous chief and other top officials.

Twitter’s advertising chief, Sarah Personette, tweeted on Tuesday that she had resigned her post last week, adding further uncertainty for advertisers.

Musk on Tuesday said subscribers with blue check marks would get priority in replies, mentions and search and would be able to post longer videos and audios. They would see half as many ads.

He also offered subscribers a pay wall bypass from “publishers willing to work with us.”

Musk’s comments follow media reports that he was looking at the process of profile verification and how the blue check marks were given. Twitter used to give these to noteworthy profiles based on its own criteria.

More than 80% of Twitter users who took part in a recent poll said they would not pay for the checkmark. Some 10% said they were willing to pay $5 a month.

Twitter already has a subscription service called Twitter Blue, which was launched in June last year and offers access to features such as an option to edit tweets.

Amid speculation that Twitter may soon start charging verified users a monthly fee of $20 for blue ticks, bestselling author Stephen King tweeted: “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”

Separately, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Twitter to B- on “significant” debt increase following the acquisition.

Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in San Francisco
Editing by Anil D’Silva and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

South Korea Halloween crush victims’ belongings fill quiet lost-and-found centre

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SEOUL, Nov 1 (Reuters) – A temporary morgue for some of the people killed in South Korea’s Halloween party crush is now a huge lost-and-found, where hundreds of items such as a “Happy Halloween” backpack and a Minnie Mouse hairband await their owners.

The Wonhyoro sports centre was quiet on Tuesday, three days after the crush in the popular Itaewon district during Halloween festivities, as a few people sifted through more than 800 recovered lost items.

Five kilometres from the scene of the disaster, the modern sports facility was used in the initial hours to keep the bodies of some of the 156 people crushed to death when a chaotic surge of crowd poured into a narrow alley late on Saturday. read more

On Tuesday, its floor was laid with 256 pairs of shoes, 258 pieces of clothing, 124 bags and 156 electronic items, and other personal belongings, including stuffed animal key chains and festive Halloween masks.

Mobile phones and identification cards were kept separately at a police station.

[1/4] Shoes belonging to victims are arranged at a gym, where recovered belongings of the victims of a crowd crush that happened during Halloween festivities are kept, in Seoul, South Korea, November 1, 2022. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

One survivor of the crush walked through the items looking for her bag, her left leg in a cast from her injury that night. She couldn’t find what she was looking for.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said she and her friend were about to head home when the crowd swelled dangerously and ended up in a large crowd pushing forward into a narrow, sloped alleyway. She got jammed in place near the bottom of the hill.

“I was smothered at the far bottom (of the alley), but I survived because my upper torso wasn’t pressed under,” she said. She said her friend was also rescued.

South Korea is in a week-long period of national mourning and top officials pledged on Tuesday to answer questions about how the tragedy unfolded and how the government could prevent similar disasters. read more

The death toll is 156 with 151 injured, 29 of whom were in serious condition. At least 26 citizens from 14 countries were among the dead.

A police officer told Reuters the gym opened for owners and family members on Monday to claim their lost items, but few have come so far.

Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Jack Kim and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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